Published November 3rd, 2016                                                                                                                      

Candidate Release: What does this mean and how does it affect me?

Early next year we plan to move from Preview Releases to Release Candidates.  A status of Release Candidate means that we have implemented enough functionality for a small, volunteer district to evaluate with the intention to “go live”.  This will most likely involve a commitment to parallel processing, testing third party integrations, etc.  This is a huge commitment and we are happy to announce we already have our first volunteer!  Once the evaluation period is over and we, the SSDT and the district, are convinced all is working properly, we will move from Release Candidates to Production Releases.  At this time, any district who feels the software meets their needs can choose to migrate from Classic to Redesign.  To be clear, this is a one-way migration.  Once you are running Redesign there is no going back to Classic.

I do not want to mislead you by implying everything you use in Classic is ready.  In USASR we will not have an Accounts Receivable system or Equipment Inventory system ready by the first Release Candidate.  We will be implementing this functionality in subsequent Release Candidates.  If these systems are vital for you to consider the software, you will not be an early adopter and that is okay.  With added functionality and extensive testing, we expect districts to slowly migrate to the Redesign.  No district will be forced.  This will be a decision you make when you are ready.  We expect it will take several years to complete all migrations from Classic to Redesign.  If you decide to wait until the end, that is your choice. 

The end?  You just said we wouldn’t be forced to migrate.  Yes, I did.  However, the expense of maintaining the Classic systems will become prohibitive for both the SSDT and your ITC.  At some point in the future there will be a requirement to move from Classic to Redesign (or other solution).

If you haven’t seen the Redesign software yet, or it’s been a while, we invite you contact your ITC and ask them to set up an instance for you to evaluate.  We would very much appreciate any feedback you have to offer so we may provide you with the highest quality software.  Please send your thoughts or questions to feedback@ssdt.nwoca.org.

USPS-R Preview Release Highlights

An overview of the most recent USPS-R preview release

Preview release #4 of USPS-R was sent to your ITCs a couple of weeks ago. This release is officially known as v0.16.0. Below is a summary of the changes that will be most apparent to you as an end user of the software. The full release notes detailing all changes can be found here

New Features and Improvements:

• Initial Mass Change program: serves as a replacement for most functions supported by MASCHG in Classic but provides much more flexibility and functionality than classic.  It will be found under many of the 'Core' menu options.
• Auditing has been implemented for many of the objects in USPS-R and we are continuing to implement auditing with subsequent releases.  The audit information is reportable using the SSDT Audit Trail Predefined Report under Report Manager.
• A USPLOAD replacement has been created.  It is located under the Import menu called USPS Load.
• A new adjustments view has been created, which is located under the Core menu.  It allows the maintenance of adjustment entries applied to payroll items.
• A new accumulation option has been added as a tab on the Leave view. This will allow the maintenance of leave accumulation transactions.
• The classic BENACC functionality has been recreated in USPS-R called Benefit Update and Projection.  This is found under the Processing menu.
• The ability to use date shortcuts has been added to the application. For instance adding a start date of "m" and an end date of "h" in a report definition will automatically provide the starting and ending date for the current month
• There have been some changes to the menu in order to reclassify items and hopefully make them easier to locate.

Any questions or feedback you have concerning this preview release can be sent to ssdt-feedback@nwoca.org.

USAS-R Predefined Reports Available

You asked... we listened.. we delivered.  We received much feedback about simplifying the process of creating reports in USAS-R which led to SSDT's creation of predefined reports.  A predefined report is basically a template report available for you to generate as is or customize to your specifications.  On our latest preview release, we provided several predefined reports.  We started with many of the popular USARPT reports in Classic and plan on adding to this list with every release.  The 'Report Manager" option under the 'Report' module displays the SSDT reports as well as any reports you have created. 

•  is the 'Generate and Download Report' option which automatically generates the report as is, allowing you to select the format, orientation and name of the report before it is generated.
  
•  will open the report definition details in order for you to see all of the options chosen for the report and from there, allow you to customize it by adding, changing or deleting properties or filters so you get the report you want.  You can save your changes under a new report name in order to re-generate it as needed.
• allows you to edit the name, description or tags of the report you created. *
• allows you to delete the report definition you created. *
  
•   will download the report definition to your computer allowing you to forward the report details onto someone else via email. Once they save your definition settings to their computer, they can then choose 'Import Report' to import your report definition in order to customize it or generate it as is.  It will be listed under their Report Manager.
•  allows you to share a saved report definition with users who have a specific role.  For example, if you create a Budget Summary Report for grant accounts and want to share the report with your building principals (who all have an existing role called "Principals"), you will select the 'Principal" role in this option and your report will be displayed under each of the principal's Report Manager.
• If you use a report frequently, checkmark the favorite box. When you log into USAS-R, it displays your "favorites" on your home page so you can easily access them.

The asterisk '*' indicates these options aren't available with the 'SSDT owned' Predefined reports.  However, once you customize a report based off of a Predefined report, or you create a report from scratch using the 'Detail' option, your username will be displayed in the 'username' column and all options will be available for your custom report.